Certain kinds of drying devices for personal use have been well-known in the art for quite some time. For example, most of us are familiar with helmet-style hairdryers which are used in beauty parlors, and hand-held blow dryers used at home for personal grooming. None of these devices are adapted or used to dry more than just a person's head. My invention, on the other hand, is specifically adapted to dry all or most of a person's body. To my knowledge, no one has previously invented a similar device.
U.S. Pats. Nos. 2,677,041 and 3,007,256 are at least two prior art patents which are pertinent to my invention. U.S. Pat. No. 2,677,041, issued to C. J. Oliver on Apr. 27, 1954, teaches the well-known electric hand dryer which is currently in use in numerous restaurants and public restroom facilities. This dryer outputs a heated airflow for drying hands or a head, but does not have a vent construction designed to uniformly output warm air over a person's entire body.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,007,256 teaches a low temperature, hot air stove which outputs heated air upwardly through a plurality of evenly-spaced perforations in a cover plate. This dryer has the shape of a relatively shallow pan and items to be dried or heated are placed directly on the plate, over the perforations, or are suspended immediately thereover. This dryer similarly does not teach the unique vent construction of the present invention disclosed herein, which, as will be described below, is designed to uniformly output air along the length of a long, vertical vent.